


What I Wanted Was To Fall Asleep

by halfabreath



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, taking shitty check please aus way too literally, tree!holster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 03:35:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13895388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfabreath/pseuds/halfabreath
Summary: The gods are real, which everyone knows, but when they’re not fighting among themselves they’re usually partying and humans have generally learned to accept their meddling without too much complaining. Ransom just never thought he’d actually know someone who’d been godtouched and he never, ever expected that it would be Holster.Alternatively: Holster becomes a tree.





	What I Wanted Was To Fall Asleep

**Author's Note:**

> a million and one thanks to shitty-check-please-aus for the prompt, ivecarvedawoodenheart for the support, and teluete for their incredible art!
> 
> What I wanted was to fall asleep  
> Close my eyes and disappear  
> Like a petal on a stream, a feather on the air
> 
> Flowers (Eurydice's Song) from Hadestown

The gods are real, which everyone knows, but when they’re not fighting among themselves they’re usually partying and humans have generally learned to accept their meddling without too much complaining. Everyone knows someone who’s been blessed or cursed, everyone claims their childhood friend or distant cousin or great great great great grandmother is the subject of some tale or another.    
  
Ransom just never thought he’d actually know someone who’d been godtouched and he never, ever expected that it would be  _ Holster _ . Sure, there are oceans in his eyes and the giggle that slips out when he watches  _ The Office _ and  _ Cheers _ sounds like a babbling brook but he’s not the only member of SMH with a little myth in him (Bitty’s warmth is as much from Hestia’s hearth as the southern sun; Jack has ice in his veins and the North Wind in his lungs; Tango, frankly, is the best possible candidate for a quest of some kind).   
  
The gods, wild and unpredictable as they may be, are still ancient and somewhat uninspired. They have patterns, tend to act the same way in similar situations: Hades opens the gates for musicians to claim their lost spouses, golden apples are awarded and forgotten, the West Wind gets jealous and throws frisbees and golf balls off course. It happens again, and again, and again, until there are hundreds of versions of each story and every single one of them is true.   
  
So, Ransom knows how it happened, because it’s happened before. Originally, it went like this: Apollo desired Daphne, a chaste river nymph. He pursued her, chasing her through the forest, and when he was just about to catch her she called out to her father, a river god, who took mercy on her and turned her into a laurel tree to keep her safe. It’s a familiar story, a cautionary tale sprinkled with bittersweet hope, the subject of Renaissance statues and the reason laurels are placed on the heads of Olympians (well, that and the fact that Zeus likes to show up at the Opening Ceremony to pick up athletes). 

Ransom’s always thought it was kind of a shitty story. A woman is turned into a tree to avoid being assaulted and the perpetrator is let off the hook? That’s no way to run the world. It’s an ancient story for an ancient time and an ancient value system that has been rightfully left in the past. It hasn’t happened in a long, long time. Ransom believes in science, in reason, and yeah, the gods are real but that doesn’t mean gravity isn’t, so Ransom’s spent the majority of his life believing that the gods will do what they will and that it won’t ever affect him. 

He’s never, ever, thought it would alter his life in any way, but now his best friend is a fucking  _ tree _ , and Ransom can’t even begin to describe how wrong it is. Trees are silent, for one, and Adam Birkholtz couldn’t go five minutes without opening his big mouth but now, now - his branches rustle in the wind, a whisper, and Ransom can’t ever remember Holster actually whispering. He’d stage whisper, his deep voice going breathy as he hunched over, hands flying as he illustrated some story (Holster loved telling stories, claimed he knew each and every person in them, even the gods themselves and Ransom never believed him) but he never actually lowered his voice. He seemed incapable of it, of making himself smaller in any way. The gods got that right, at least, because the tree that was his best friend towers over the quad, filling the space just like Holster could fill a room simply by walking into it. 

Holster’s tree - or, more accurately,  _ Holster _ \- appeared on campus on a brisk October morning. The campus woke up to a fully grown sycamore tree, its leaves already tinged with autumnal yellows and browns, a pair of glasses embedded in a knot about six feet high. Ransom woke up to an empty bottom bunk and thought nothing of it; now he wakes up to an empty bottom bunk and a loneliness he carries with him until his head returns to the pillow each night.

But still, Ransom carries on. He goes to practice, attends class, has his regularly scheduled panic attacks. (He passes the puck to someone who isn’t there, stares into space during lectures and wonders what little, brilliant details Holster’s running commentary would include, he clings to the roots of the tree until the thin bark cuts into his skin and he aches, he aches, he aches).

Ransom believes in science, in logic, in order, and just because his best friend is a tree doesn’t mean he can’t believe in those things anymore. If there’s one thing Ransom understands, it’s data, and luckily the gods have given him thousands of years of repetitive behavior to chart. 

So, Ransom knows how it happened, because it’s happened before. It’s a simple recipe: A nymph, a chase, a timely transformation. Holster is the nymph, the transformation is the tree, but the missing piece sinks its claws at the base of his skull and doesn’t let go.

What was chasing Holster? 

What could have possibly placed his friend in so much danger that the gods turned him into a tree to keep him safe? Worst of all, how could Ransom not have noticed it? Holster was so busy keeping Ransom safe that Ransom never really wondered who kept Holster safe.

Ransom believes in science, in fact, in reality. He knows that if he misses a step when he climbs Holster’s limbs gravity will bring him back to the earth at the rate of 9.81 meters per second squared. He knows that without his partner, he will not be as efficient and effective on the ice. He knows that his best friend is still his best friend, even if Holster is more bark than bite these days.

He hopes Holster can hear him when he presses his forehead against his trunk and tells him about his day. He hopes it doesn’t hurt when he plucks one of Holster’s leaves and brings it back to the attic just to have a piece of him at home. He hopes Holster can feel his hand pressed against the bark. He hopes that the heartbeat he feels thumping against his palm isn’t just his imagination. But most of all, he hopes that one day he’ll wake up and find Holster sleeping peacefully in the bottom bunk.

Ransom hopes, and knows, and climbs, and investigates, and prays. He even tries to lure Holster back to humanity with the promise of a  _ Cheers _ marathon. He ends up downloading an episode to his laptop and curls up at the base of Holster’s trunk (there’s a knot of roots that form a hollow that’s perfectly Ransom shaped with soft moss and smooth bark that doesn’t dig into his back) to watch it with him. 

Holster’s laughter used to be a babbling brook but now it’s the wind rustling his leaves: contained and quiet, two words that do not fit his best friend. Ransom misses his crashing waves, his powerful riptide, how easy it was to get caught up in his current. 

At least Ransom always knows where to find him. 

* * *

The gods are real, which everyone knows, but Holster’s more accustomed to their meddling than most. The gods aren’t ancient, foreign entities: they’re family. Erie and Ontario are distant cousins on his mother’s side (they drop in every decade or so but mostly spend the visit complaining about zebra clams) and Rhenus Pater, the Rhine, is an uncle removed by five or six greats (Holster can never remember; everyone just calls him Rhenus, anyway). Rhenus is, of course, directly related to Poseidon, who is actually a pretty chill guy once you get past the dripping wet beard and constantly exposed six pack (the statues Holster’s seen in museums are uncomfortably accurate - Grandpa Poseidon is absolutely  _ shredded _ ). 

It’s not uncommon for humans to have one deity or another way back in their family tree, but Holster has nymphs on both sides. Surprisingly, it doesn’t affect much besides family reunions. He doesn’t have powers or eternal life or anything that’s actually useful. If anything, he’s a better swimmer than most humans and he doubts any of his relatives would let him drown in their depths, but his heritage doesn’t affect his daily life. 

_ Please, I can’t -   _

At least it didn’t until he got turned into a fucking  _ tree _ . 

_ I can’t breathe when I -   _

Before, Holster hadn’t ever asked his mythic relatives for anything. Not for help during a hockey game, not for beauty or intelligence or smaller teeth (Rhenus offered; Holster declined). He’s received gifts, because the gods are generous and have little to no impulse control (Grandpa Poseidon once gave him a lionfish because he knows Holster loves  _ New Girl _ ; Holster ended up donating it to an aquarium because it’s illegal for people to own them and he doubts a judge would believe that the ocean itself gave it to him no matter how illustrious his family tree is). 

_ I can’t breathe when I see him, please -  _

Lionfish aside, Holster has only ever asked for one thing.

_ I don’t want to feel like this anymore.  _

When Holster was still human his emotions would reverberate throughout his body, crashing into his stomach and lungs as they ricocheted off his bones. He’d be left bruised and battered, unable to fight the rising tide that swelled in the back of his throat. He’s always thought it it was the myth in him that made him feel so intensely. The gods are ruled by emotion, after all, and Holster might not have been able to breathe underwater but he drowned in sorrow and joy, dove into happiness and anger, tread against fear until his strength gave out. 

_ I don’t want to feel this way when he doesn’t -  _

Most of the time it was manageable. Holster had plenty of practice swallowing down emotions he didn’t need or want but in the fall of his senior year everything fell apart. He’s loved Ransom just about the entire time they’ve known each other, but there’s more than one type of love, after all, and loving his best friend didn’t mean he was  _ in _ love with his best friend. Holster’s just not sure when things changed (and really, things haven’t changed all that much; they’re still the same  _ RansomandHolster _ , Holster just has a whole mess of emotions knotted up deep in his gut and he burns his fingertips whenever he tries to untangle them, bright and hot as they are with need and love and most of all, hopelessness). 

_ I don’t want to love him if he doesn’t love me. _

Holster had been so good about protecting himself. He focused on school, the team, and kegsters. He went to the weight room or the library whenever Ransom brought someone back to the attic. He spent the nights in stranger’s beds and snuck out before they woke up. He still joked around with Ransom, still studied with him, still shared everything from beers to t-shirts, still spent as much time as he possibly could with his best friend. He had a plan and it worked until it didn’t, until a dark night in mid October when the dam broke. Flooded with love and fear and pain and  _ what ifs _ he’d bolted out of the attic in the middle of of the night in search of higher ground and found himself by the Pond. Everyone knows it houses  _ someone _ , but no one’s actually seen the pond nymph. Holster can’t say he blames her - given the opportunity he’d probably avoid any an all human interaction with college undergrads as well - but simply being around water has always been centering for Holster so he took the risk of drawing her attention. He’d dipped his hand in until the cool water flowed over his wrist and waited for the ripples to relax his pulse. 

_ Make me stop loving him. _

Holster doesn’t remember making the request out loud, but he’ll never forget the sensation of a cool hand wrapping around his submerged palm. He’d cried out in surprise and jerked back, scrambling away from the Pond. The drops of water flew from his hand and rained down over the worried face that peered up at him from beneath the rippling surface of the water. Holster had reached out, hoping to take her hand again, but when he extended his arm his hand was covered with pale bark and seedlings sprouted from his fingertips. 

“You’re welcome,” whispered the face in the water, her features relaxing into a placid smile. She’d faded, slipping back into the darkness. As the rippling Pond smoothed over Holster had stumbled away until his feet became roots and when he’d cried out for help only the sound of snapping branches tumbled from his mouth. The last thing he remembers is freezing cold fear settling into the hollow of his throat and he’d tried to scream  _ this is not what I wanted _ but instead he’d rustled his branches until the first of his leaves fluttered to the ground. 

And now - 

Holster doesn’t feel anything, and he thinks that’s exactly the point. He got precisely what he asked for, and Holster can’t feel anger or disappointment anymore, anyway. Dulled imitations of emotions creep up through his roots, slow as sap, and sometimes a dead leaf snaps off a branch and flutters to the ground. He doesn’t drown anymore; he can’t even feel the waves break against his chest.

So he sleeps, and watches, and when Ransom comes to visit his heart doesn’t leap in his chest and bounce around his ribcage like it used to. His heart doesn’t skip a beat when Ransom touches him because his heart no longer beats. (Ransom’s does, though, he can feel it through his bark when Ransom presses his hand against Holster’s trunk and for a moment Holster thinks he’s in his old bunk on the rare nights when Ransom would sleep tucked against him to ward off ghosts; on those nights he swears he felt Ransom’s heartbeat deep in his own chest but now when Ransom’s heart thumps his doesn’t beat in tandem and it’s wrong, they’re not supposed to be out of sync, it’s  _ wrong - _ )

Time passes. Leaves turn from green to orange to yellow to brown and Holster’s not exactly sure if he’s hibernating or dying or what and honestly, he can’t bring himself to care (he should ask Ransom, Ransom will know, Ransom always knows). 

The only way he can tell if time has passed is Ransom. He comes to see Holster at least once a day if not twice and sometimes he even appears briefly between each class. Holster might have a squirrel infestation but he still has Ransom’s schedule memorized (he still has  _ Ransom _ memorized; the weight of his head on Holster’s shoulder when he slept on the bus on the way back to campus after a roadie, the warmth of his knuckles when they’d bump fists, the way he still fit perfectly in Holster’s arms during a celly even when they were weighed down by bulky equipment, how he lit up when he forgot to pretend he wasn’t a total nerd and rambled about chemical equations until he realized just how dorky he sounded) and he only realizes just how much time has passed when Ransom’s schedule changes. He still comes every day, but now he spends hours curled up in the hollow of roots and moss that fits him perfectly. Sometimes he plays an episode of  _ 30 Rock _ or  _ Cheers _ on his laptop (it’s much less entertaining now that Holster can’t feel joy but he remembers how much he used to laugh that’s as close as he can get these days) but mostly Ransom just talks (and Holster could listen to him talk about the minutiae of his days for the rest of his life but Holster knows he could make Ransom laugh again if he could just  _ say something _ ).

Time passes. Holster’s leaves fall and his bark splinters. Ransom’s coats get longer and thicker and his visits get shorter and sadder. 

Holster cannot feel regret, but when Ransom presses his forehead against his trunk Holster thinks,  _ this is not what I wanted.  _ His branches rustle, but there are no more leaves to fall. 

* * *

The gods are real, which everyone knows, but Nemasket doesn’t care much for them or anyone else, for that matter. She’s too small and too quiet to even consider getting involved with the dramatics on Mount Olympus and she doesn’t have the energy to interact with the humans who live along her small shores. Years ago she lived among them, knew their names and stories and did what she could to help them. They gave her a name and listened when she spoke and she would listen in turn. 

Then there were new people, and then there was war and her people left. The new people cleared the forests and built fences and roads and a university and now she has to contend with drunk skinny dippers and runoff pollution (the pollution is only slightly more annoying than the skinny dippers). 

Nemasket does not speak, because they do not know her name. They call her The Pond and her shores the Beach (Nemasket knows better than to take the name to heart; claiming to be the ocean is hubris of the highest degree) and they do not listen when she speaks because she does not speak. 

Every once in a while one of the children (she knows humans consider them adults but they spend their whole lives as children as far as Nemasket is concerned) speaks to her. Most of the time it’s in jest; a cruel joke shouted across her waters in an attempt to rile her into responding but sometimes,  _ sometimes _ , someone kneels beside her and whispered words travel across her surface like skipped stones. 

Genuine words are rare, though. Years usually pass between each occurrence but recently a small cluster of sincerity has formed. One of the old gods - an actual son of Hermes - visited before he started school.  _ The narrative and scope of this au has spiraled a bit out of hand, but it’s nice to meet you, anyway.  _ He’d said. Not long after, one of Boreas’ relations had placed his hand over her frozen water and asked, very politely,  _ Hello. Can my team skates on you? Please don’t let anyone fall in. _ She’d recognize his eyes anywhere - his mother had often visited during her time at school - and so she agreed. 

Then  _ he _ stepped on the ice. Rhenus’ nephew. She’d recognize a member of her own family anywhere, and now, he’s skating circles around one of his teammates, laughing and shouting joyfully. His name comes to her from the groundwater.  _ Adam. _

She laughs from the irony, air bubbles blooming beneath the thick layer of ice she created for the North Wind’s polite grandson. A relation of Poseidon named after red clay? Hilarious. 

Nemasket can’t remember the last time she laughed. Adam. She hears waves roaring when he laughs and watches him settle into a smooth, glassy surface when practice ends and he skates around her shores, aimless and happy. A teammate, a man with sharp cheekbones and smiling eyes, breaks away from the pack and skates beside him; happy ripples form when Adam sees him. There’s some emotion twisting beneath the surface, churning the deep waters beneath. 

_ Ah. _ Adam’s in love. Good for him. 

Nemasket wishes him well, but but still does not speak. She watches him for the rest of the year, when he skips stones over her and reclines beside her. He’s almost always with his teammate; his waters are almost always rippling. He’s in love but not doing anything about it, and Nemasket knows enough of the old stories to know why that’s not a good idea, but it’s not her place to shake some sense into him. 

Summer comes and Adam leaves. He’s back, still rippling, before Nemasket has a chance to miss him. Over time, the ripples get stronger, more frequent. Soon, waves form. Whitecaps appear. Someone has caught Adam’s tide, but there’s nothing she can do to help. 

That is, until a gloomy October evening. 

Adam comes to her in the night, and for the first time she doesn’t see his waves. There’s no water at all; the sea has receded. 

_ I don’t want to love him if he doesn’t love me. _

Nemasket knows that can only mean one thing. 

_ Make me stop loving him. _

The tsunami looms over them, blocking out the moon, and when it crashes down over Adam Nemasket is swept away along with him. She grabs his hand, desperate to find a way to anchor them both. The current’s too strong, the water’s too cold, the whirlpool is forming too quickly, he’ll drown if she doesn’t help him

Nemasket makes a decision to save him. Adam stumbles back, too afraid to understand what’s happening to him.

“You’re welcome,” she says, voice hoarse from hundreds of years of disuse. Her throat is clogged with mud and watercress but she forces the words out for him. He runs away, stumbling as his limbs lengthen and harden, as leaves sprout from his fingertips and roots slither from his feet. He grows before her eyes, twisting and splintering until a huge sycamore looms above her waters. Now, he’s safe. He doesn’t have to feel anything he doesn’t want to, anymore. His waters are still and calm.

She hopes this is what he wanted. 

* * *

The gods are real, the tree that was his best friend is all too real, but Ransom’s not sure if  _ he _ is anymore. He’s stopped looking for Holster around every corner, stopped hoping he’ll suddenly show up on the bottom bunk, stopped using present tense when he talks about him. He still visits but most of the time he just places his hand on Holster’s trunk and whispers a quick  _ Hey, bro, what’s up, miss you, please come back, _ too heartsick to linger much longer than that.

More and more, it’s beginning to feel like he can’t exist in a world where Holster’s not with him. Ransom’s long thought of his body as a biological machine; it is made up of smaller parts and systems that all have specific functions and the body as a whole has a function as well. He, himself, is not a machine but the body that holds him is and yet, somehow, it’s breaking down. There’s nothing actually wrong with him - his chest pain has no physical cause, his bouts of shortness of breath are too random to assign to any one stimulus, his hands shake for no discernible reason. Ransom is  _ fine _ , but he’s not working like he’s supposed to. 

Even Jack, the ultimate biological, emotional, psychological machine, has noticed. When everyone arrived back on campus for the new semester to find Holster still rooted to the quad Jack had walked with Ransom to visit him for the first time. Ransom wasn’t sure how much time Jack spent visiting, but the way he’d reached out and fondly bumped his bare knuckles against Holster’s truck seemed habitual, familiar. Ransom rested his forehead against his friend for a long moment, bare palm pressed against the bark as he prayed for a heartbeat, until Jack came to stand beside him. 

“It’s hard losing the people you love,” Jack had said as he clapped a heavy hand on Ransom’s shoulder before wandering away to give him privacy.    
  
It is. Of course it is. Jack left before Ransom could respond but he’s forced to answer the question: did he love Holster? He knows he did. They both did. Holster had told him as much after a kegster, when the only sounds in the Haus were drunken murmurs and shifting floorboards as people made their way home. They’d been in the attic, a box of Franzia between them, watching something stupid on Holster’s laptop when he’d suddenly leaned over and bumped their shoulders together.   
  
(Holster’s lips were red from the cheap wine, Ransom’s not sure why he remembers that or why it’s important but he does and it is and Holster’s  _ redpink _ lips had smiled when he’d said  _ I love you, dude. You’re my best friend. _ And Ransom had said  _ You’re my best friend, too _ , but he hadn’t said  _ I love you _ even though it’s true.   
  
It’s true.

  
Now that Ransom thinks about it, he’s not sure it’s ever been true before. He’s loved, obviously, because there are a million different forms of love and Ransom loves his family and friends and even humankind as a whole on his better days but this is different. It feels different.   
  
It’s true.   
  
That’s important, but Ransom doesn’t know why.)

It’s warmer now; small green buds form on the tips of Holster’s branches where his leaves used to be. Ransom had been a little worried his branches would stay bare and brittle even though the laws of botany assured him Holster would be fine. The gods don’t always like to obey the rules. He tells Holster as much one drizzly afternoon in early March.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be all right,” Ransom admits as he tucks his head against the damp bark, muscles still wrung out from the away game they’d played earlier in the day. For the first time in weeks he doesn’t have to whisper. The quad is empty, the intermittent, unpredictable rain keeping everyone inside. He’s wet and cold but Ransom’s happy for the privacy. He’s curled up in his little hollow of roots, duffel bag tucked under his legs and  the side of his head pressed against Holster’s trunk (when he closes his eyes the root that’s pressing into his lower back almost feels like a hand around his waist; intimate and calming all at once and it feels so familiar even though he can’t ever remember Holster touching him like this). 

“Like,” Ransom begins again, searching for the exact right words. “You’re a sycamore, and sycamores are deciduous, so losing your leaves was just abscission, that’s what it’s called, yeah it’s  _ abs _ cission, not  _ ass _ cission, I know exactly where you’d go with that. No, it doesn’t mean you have abs, you were always so -  _ are so _ obsessed with abs, just calm down, dude. You’re plenty ripped without the extra definition but if you really want to go for it we can. But anyway, losing your leaves was totally normal but the thing is, you’re not really a normal tree. I don’t know how far the human-tree divide goes, so I wasn’t sure.” Ransom sighs, raising a hand to wipe the rain from his eyes. “I was afraid you died.” He admits. 

And then it hits him: Holster’s  _ not  _ dead, that that, somehow, is just as painful because Ransom’s lost him either way.

“Hey, asshole,” Ransom manages to choke out. “I’m so - so fucking angry with you. You had one job,  _ one _ , that that was to continue to be a human being because I can’t be best friends with a tree. Why’d you have to go and -” Ransom wraps his arms around his legs and presses his face into his knees. He can still feel Holster all around him, hard and cold and so unlike his friend.

“I know how the stories go. It’s just data, you know? It’s always the same. There’s a formula, and it’s so fucking simple. It’s easy. You were running from something and instead of asking me for help you asked  _ them? _ How’s that fair?" Ransom tilts to the side, unfolding just enough to cling to the base of Holster's trunk. He knows he must look pathetic, but he also knows that Holster would love the sheer drama of the moment. The thought makes him smile, briefly, and then it makes him blindingly angry. This isn't how they're supposed to be. They're supposed to be best friends, together forever, lives entwined on and off the ice. That was the plan.

Then Holster had to go and get himself turned into a tree, and Ransom has no idea what's next. He doesn't know what to do. "You always helped me and I didn’t even get to - you didn’t even give me a chance to help you. That’s fucked up.” Ransom's crying now, speaking through heaving sobs that make his chest ache.

"I'm sorry," He mumbles once he manages to catch his breath. The thin, wet bark is pressing painfully into his cheek. Ransom doesn't care. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to - I just miss you so much."

(Holster's  _ redpink _ lips had smiled;  _ I love you, dude. You're my best friend. _ Ransom had said  _ You're my best friend, too _ because it meant the exact same thing as  _ I love you _ . Love and friendship were one in the same but now Ransom knows they're not. His best friend is a tree; he cannot be best friends with a tree. But he still loves him. Holster is no longer his best friend but Ransom still loves him and he knows that's different and he finally knows why.)

"You're my best friend. I love you, too." Ransom says, because it’s important. 

Suddenly, a heartbeat thrums beneath his cheek, thumping steadily where there was once stillness. The roots pressed against his legs and back rumble, trembling as branches snap above Ransom’s head and come crashing down around him. Ransom covers his head as the green-tipped branches fall alongside the raindrops to hit the soaked earth with a wet  _ thwack _ and when he dares to look up the sycamore tree shrinks before his very eyes. The roots beneath him are slithering back and forth; the bark groans as the knot that holds Holster’s glasses smooths out into a familiar face. 

The thin, mottled bark falls away from Holster’s neck to reveal the long, pale column of his throat as the branches above him fall away to reveal his  _ browngraygreen _ arms and hands. Holster sags forward when his torso is freed and Ransom surges up to catch him. Holster’s eyes fly open, so blue against the moss that’s clinging to his hair. The bark on Holster’s arms cuts into Ransom’s skin but he holds him tightly, carefully falling back to the damp earth as Holster’s roots twist around them. 

Holster's in his arms, all warm muscle and soft skin and there's not a leaf in sight, his glasses perched perfectly on his nose. He's staring up at Ransom, eyes wide, looking as shocked as Ransom feels, and he's here, he's real, and Ransom is, too.

That’s important. 

Ransom cups Holster’s cheek with a shaking hand. Holster’s half-flesh-half-sapling hand flies up to curl tightly around Ransom’s wrist, holding his palm firmly against his cheek. Holster’s staring up at him and Ransom can see something churning beneath the surface, disrupting the stillness with little ripples. 

(Ransom aches, he aches, he aches.)

It’s amazing, really, how easy it is to dip his head forward to press their lips together. After everything, it’s the easiest decision Ransom has ever made. Holster’s lips are chapped and wet from the rain or tears or both, Ransom can’t tell, but his hand squeezes around Ransom’s wrist as he rises up, as powerful a wave as Ransom has ever felt. Ransom drinks him in; he hangs on until Holster floods him, seeping into every crack. 

Ransom pulls back with a gasp; Holster is still. 

"Holster," Ransom says, voice soft. "You have to breathe."

Holster's mouth falls open and a harsh, strangled gasp falls out. His ribs expand and contract as he takes his first breath in months. Ransom realizes, belatedly, that he’s completely bare, and he drags his hockey bag close and pulls out a sweatshirt to help guard against the chill. 

"Sorry," Holster mumbles as Ransom tucks the sweatshirt around his hips. His voice is filled with crashing waves instead of rustling leaves, and it’s the best thing Ransom’s heard in months. "I forgot." 

"That's okay," Ransom says quickly, shoulders sagging in relief. "That's okay, I'll remind you." Holster's lips curl up into a small, crooked smile. He takes another breath. Finally, Ransom knows exactly where to find him. “I’m sorry I called you an asshole.” He says. Holster laughs as he uncurls his fingers around Ransom’s wrist and pulls him close. 

“I deserved it,” Holster says, cutting himself off when he seals their lips together again. Ransom’s hand slips down to his neck; he can feel Holster’s heartbeat jumping against his fingertips. 

Ransom believes in science, in fact, in logic, but he believes in Holster, too. (Nothing can make him stop loving him loving him loving him loving  _ him _ .)   
  



End file.
